Being a victim or being free

“A person who considers himself a hardline victim can always give you a reason explaining why he is a victim and why he’s unable to free himself. If you told him his reason is actually an obstacle in his own path, he’d deny it. If you told him he could be free, he’d deny it. If you helped him, he’d find a way to turn that help into failure. That’s what a victim is. Even a peasant under the brutal rule of an oligarch can conceive of revolution. That’s not being a victim. That’s the seed of freedom.”

“For many people, the possibility of provoking change for the better is a horror show waiting to happen. They back away, as if an electric charge just hit their skin. Better to sit in the dark and take potshots. Better to bathe in comprehensive cynicism forever. What do these cynics really want? They want a comfortable place from which they can look at life, one step removed, and develop their role as a spectator. That’s safe. That’s good. Watch the passing parade. Remain invisible. That turns out to be their definition of freedom.”

“People say the Constitution had some good ideas in it, but the men who wrote it were slaveholders, and therefore this fact negates everything in the document. That’s the easy way out. That’s the preference for not thinking. That’s college education. That’s considered deep insight. That’s the ship of fools. If the Constitution had some good ideas in it, let’s take them and put them where they belong. At the head of the line. Freedom, severely limited government, no unreasonable search and seizure. An idea can stand on its own. But people need to be able to CONSIDER an idea. Think about it. Think about what it means, what its implications are. If they can’t, they’re cooked. They’re already losing active brain cells. Most likely, they’re just making noises to indicate they want something for nothing. Something for nothing is their Constitution. That’s the best they have. That’s another picture of what it means to be a victim.”

“Freedom starts with the discovery that you can make choices. Where did that discovery originate? It’s obvious. The first humans knew it. So it’s been around forever. The struggle to gain freedom, on a firm political basis—that took a long, long time. That has a history. The socialists and Globalists and Communists and pickled-brained professors who inhabit today’s colleges in teaching positions don’t want to touch that history. Their precious careers would be on the line if they did. So colleges are dead. Being dead is part of the prevailing culture. Overthrowing that culture is a very good idea. But why would anyone pay a fortune for the privilege of attending a college in order to overthrow its culture? That’s self-defeating.”

“Those words, ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’, are referring to whom? Some group? Of course not. They refer to the individual. And therein lie the seeds of a perpetual revolution. Because society itself implies a great amount of organization which keeps narrowing liberty. Billionaires always talk about ‘giving something back’. But how many of them would launch a series of colleges based on the study and practice of individual freedom and the self-accountability that comes with it? Such an idea isn’t on their radar. They may be lions when it comes to operating in the free market, but when it comes to going up against the prevailing culture, they’re lambs. Or they’re suddenly socialists, which means they’re all about building a system that protects their money at the expense of everyone else. They’ve learned the lessons of cowardice and hypocrisy. They should open schools based on those values.”

“Standing up with your own ideas and principles and living them out is a natural outcome of freedom and making choices. Compulsively assessing your chances of winning, making all sorts of calculations—this isn’t part of the deal. It never was. Obsessively making those calculations is hedging your bets. You keep watering down your vision until it’s a little leaking boat and all you think about is how to bail out.”

“If your best idea about the future you’re going to pursue seems extreme, chances are it’s extreme relative to the prevailing culture. What else would you expect? That difference, that contrast produces friction, and it gives you an edge of toughness. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.”

“The second half of the 20th century had a hidden theme: the retreat back into various fundamentalisms, none of which supported individual freedom. It was all about ‘going tribal’. It was a search for lost energy and a desire to find it in a more primitive group. But the energy was lost in the first place because individuals backed away from the realization that they were free and had the capacity to imagine and pursue a self-made destiny. This realization was the culmination of a centuries-long struggle to enthrone freedom beyond the reach of governments and oligarchs and priests. It was too much for many people. They looked for something else. They’re still looking.”

Jon Rappoport

The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.

5 comments on “Being a victim or being free”

Thank you for this soul-stirring reminder and wake-up call, Jon! I am also realizing in a profound way that something else we have slowly and almost imperceptibly lost is the appreciation for Beauty. I have started re-reading John O’Donohue’s book, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, and it alarms me to realize how much my sense of and longing for Beauty has been diminished in the past year as a result of being too engaged in what our sleeping world culture is pounding on and on about. Time to get back to Beauty, the truest inspiration for Imagination!

The Victim is just one side of the coin. With the Victim, an external someone or something holds the key to your feeling trapped. The other side of the coin is the True Believer, where an external entity is the key to your emotional well-being. Different feelings, but identical loss of freedom. The True Believer gladly gives up his independence to feel good, while the Victim feels forced into his role and thus feel bad.

Most people are part time Victims and part-time True Believers. They are, after all, just different roles that justify the same dependency condition.